Teresa of Ávila

Early life Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda Dávila y Ahumada was born on 28 March 1515. Her birthplace was either Ávila or Gotarrendura. Her paternal grandfather, Juan Sánchez de Toledo, was a or , a Jew forced to convert to Christianity or emigrate. When Teresa's father was a child, Juan was condemned by the Spanish Inquisition for allegedly returning to Judaism, but he was later able to assume a Catholic identity. Her father, Alonso Sánchez de Cepeda, was a successful wool merchant and one of the wealthiest men in Ávila. He bought a knighthood and assimilated successfully into Christian society. Sánchez de Cepeda was previously married to Catalina del Peso y Henao, with whom he had three children. In 1509, he married Teresa's mother, Beatriz de Ahumada y Cuevas, in Gotarrendura. Her brother, Lorenzo de Cepeda y Ahumada, was the father of Teresa de Ahumada. Teresa's mother raised her as a dedicated Christian. Fascinated by accounts of the lives of the saints, she ran away from home at age seven with her brother Rodrigo to seek martyrdom in the fight against the Moors. Her uncle brought them home when he spotted them just outside the town walls. When Teresa was fourteen years old, her mother died, leaving her grief-stricken. This prompted her to embrace a deeper devotion to the Virgin Mary as her spiritual mother. Teresa was also enamored with popular fiction, which at the time consisted primarily of medieval tales of knighthood and works about fashion, gardens and flowers. The abject poverty of the new convent, established in 1562 and named St. Joseph's (San José), at first caused a scandal among the citizens and authorities of Ávila, and the small house with its chapel was in peril of suppression. However, powerful patrons, including the local bishop, coupled with the impression of well ordered subsistence and purpose, turned animosity into approval. The body was exhumed again on 25 November 1585 to be moved to Ávila and found to be incorrupt. An arm was removed and left in Alba de Tormes at the nuns' request, to compensate for losing the main relic of Teresa, but the rest of the body was reburied in the Discalced Carmelite chapter house in Ávila. The removal was done without the approval of the Duke of Alba de Tormes and he brought the body back in 1586, with Pope Sixtus V ordering that it remain in Alba de Tormes on pain of excommunication. A grander tomb on the original site was raised in 1598 and the body was moved to a new chapel in 1616. The body still remains there, except for the following parts: • Rome – right foot and part of the upper jaw • Lisbon – hand • Ronda, Spain – left eye and left hand (the latter was kept by Francisco Franco until his death, after Francoist troops captured it from Republican troops during the Spanish Civil War) • Museum of the Church of the Annunciation, Alba de Tormes – left arm and heart • Church of Our Lady of Loreto, Paris, France – one finger • Sanlúcar de Barrameda – one finger '' by Bernini, Basilica of Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome|alt=|left|353x353px On August 28, 2024, it was made the canonical recognition of Teresa's body. The postulator general of the Order of Discalced Carmelites, Father Marco Chiesa, announced that those present at the scene were able to see that "it is in the same condition as when it was last opened in 1914." When the body was publicly exposed in May 2025, netizens questioned the incorrupted state of the corpse, given its apparent condition. Canonization , Mafra In 1622, forty years after her death, she was canonized by Pope Gregory XV. The Cortes exalted her to patron saint of Spain in 1627. The University of Salamanca had granted her the title (Latin for "Doctor of the Church") with a diploma in her lifetime, but that title is distinct from the papal honour of Doctor of the Church, which is always conferred posthumously. The latter was finally bestowed upon her by Pope Paul VI on 27 September 1970, along with Catherine of Siena, making them the first women to be awarded the distinction. Teresa is revered as Doctor orationis ("Doctor of Prayer"). The mysticism in her works exerted a formative influence upon many theologians of the following centuries, such as Francis of Sales, Fénelon, and the Port-Royalists. In 1670, her coffin was plated in silver. Teresa of Avila is honored in the Church of England and in the Episcopal Church on 15 October. Patron saint In 1626, at the request of Philip IV of Spain, the Castilian parliament elected Teresa "without lacking one vote" as copatron saint of Castile. This status was affirmed by Pope Urban VIII in a brief issued on 21 July 1627 in which he stated: More broadly, the 1620s, the entirety of Spain (Castile and beyond) debated who should be the country's patron saint; the choices were either the current patron, James Matamoros, or a pairing of him and the newly canonised Saint Teresa of Ávila. Teresa's promoters said Spain faced newer challenges, especially the threat of Protestantism and societal decline at home, thus needing a more contemporary patron who understood those issues and could guide the Spanish nation. Santiago's supporters (Santiaguistas) fought back and eventually won the argument, but Teresa of Ávila remained far more popular at the local level. James the Great kept the title of patron saint for the Spanish people, and the most Blessed Virgin Mary under the title Immaculate Conception as the sole patron for the entire Spanish Kingdom. Legacy regarding the Infant Jesus of Prague The Spanish nuns who established Carmel in France brought a devotion to the Infant Jesus with them, and it became widespread in France. Though there are no written historical accounts establishing that Teresa of Ávila ever owned the famous Infant Jesus of Prague statue, according to tradition, such a statue is said to have been in her possession and Teresa is reputed to have given it to a noblewoman travelling to Prague. The age of the statue dates to approximately the same time as Teresa. It has been thought that Teresa carried a portable statue of the Child Jesus wherever she went; the idea circulated by the early 1700s. ==Writings==

. This is the portrait of Teresa that is probably the most true to her appearance. It is a copy of an original 1576 painting of her when she was 61. Autobiography The autobiography La Vida de la Santa Madre Teresa de Jesús (The Life of the Holy Mother Teresa of Jesus) was written at Ávila between 1562 and 1565, but published posthumously. Editions include: • The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus ... Written by herself. Translated from the Spanish by D. Lewis, 1870. London: Burns, Oates, & Co • The Autobiography, written before 1567, under the direction of her confessor, Fr. Pedro Ibáñez, 1882 • The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila by herself. J. M. Cohen, 1957. Penguin Classics • Life of St. Teresa of Jesus. Translated by Benedict Zimmerman, 1997. Tan Books, • The Life of Teresa of Jesus: The Autobiography of Teresa of Avila. Translated by E. Allison Peers, 1991. Doubleday, • The Book of Her Life, translated, with notes, by Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD and Otilio Rodriguez, OCD, 2008. Introduction by Jodi Bilinkoff. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, • The Book of My Life. Mirabai Starr, 2008. Boston, Massachusetts: Shambhala Publications, The Way of Perfection The Way of Perfection ('') was published in 1566. Teresa called this a "living book" and in it set out to teach her nuns how to progress through prayer and Christian meditation. She discusses the rationale for being a Carmelite, and the rest deals with the purpose of and approaches to spiritual life. The title was inspired by the devotional book The Imitation of Christ (1418) which had become a favourite expression of Teresa much before she wrote this work, as it appeared at several places in her autobiography, The Life of Teresa of Jesus. Like her other books, The Way of Perfection'' was written on the advice of her counsellors to describe her experiences in prayer during the period when the Reformation was spreading through Europe. Herein she describes ways of attaining spiritual perfection through prayer and its four stages, as in meditation, quiet, repose of soul and finally perfect union with God, which she equates with rapture. ;Editions: • El Camino de Perfección (The Way of Perfection), written also before 1567, at the direction of her confessor. • The Way of Perfection, and Conceptions of Divine Love, translated by J. Dalton, C. Dolman, 1852. • The Way of Perfection. Translated and Edited by E. Allison Peers, Doubleday, 1991. • The Way of Perfection, TAN Books, 1997. • Way of Perfection, London, 2012. limovia.net Interior Castle The Interior Castle, or The Mansions ('' or Las Moradas''), was written in 1577 and published in 1588. It contained the basis for what she felt should be the ideal journey of faith, comparing the contemplative soul to a castle with seven successive interior courts, or chambers, analogous to the seven mansions. The work was inspired by her vision of the soul as a diamond in the shape of a castle containing seven mansions, which she interpreted as the journey of faith through seven stages, ending with union with God. Fray Diego, one of Teresa's former confessors, wrote that God revealed to Teresa: Christia Mercer, Columbia University philosophy professor, claims that the seventeenth-century Frenchman René Descartes lifted some of his most influential ideas from Teresa of Ávila, who, fifty years before Descartes, wrote popular books about the role of philosophical reflection in intellectual growth. She describes a number of striking similarities between Descartes's seminal work Meditations on First Philosophy and Teresa's Interior Castle. • The 2007 book by American spiritual author Caroline Myss Entering the Castle was inspired by St. Teresa's Interior Castle, but still has a New Age approach to mysticism. • St. Teresa also inspired American author R. A. Lafferty in his novel Fourth Mansions (1969), which was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1970. • Brooke Fraser's song "Orphans, Kingdoms" was inspired by St. Teresa's Interior Castle. • Jean Stafford's short story "The Interior Castle" relates the intense preoccupation of an accident victim with her own brain, which she sees variously as a jewel, a flower, a light in a glass and a set of envelopes within envelopes. • Jeffrey Eugenides' 2011 novel The Marriage Plot refers to St. Teresa's Interior Castle when recounting the religious experience of Mitchell Grammaticus, one of the main characters of the book. • Teen Daze's 2012 release The Inner Mansions refers to St. Teresa's Interior Castle in the album's title as well as in the first track. "... have mercy on yourselves! If you realize your pitiable condition, how can you refrain from trying to remove the darkness from the crystal of your souls? Remember, if death should take you now, you would never again enjoy the light of this Sun". This line appears dubbed over the musical introduction to "New Life". • In Mark Williamson's ONE: a memoir (2018), the metaphor of the Interior Castle is used to describe an inner world of introspective reflection on past events, a set of "memory loci" based on the ancient system of recall for rhetorical purposes. Other • Relaciones (Relationships), an extension of the autobiography giving her inner and outer experiences in epistolary form. • Her rare poems (Todas las poesías, Munster, 1854) are distinguished for tenderness of feeling and rhythm of thought. • The Complete Poetry of St. Teresa of Avila. A Bilingual Edition – Edición y traducción de Eric W. Vogt. New Orleans University Press of the South, 1996. Second edition, 2015. xl, 116 p. • "Meditations on Song of Songs", 1567, written nominally for her daughters at the convent of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. • Conceptos del Amor ("Concepts of Love") and • Exclamaciones. • Las Cartas (Saragossa, 1671), or her correspondence, of which there are 342 extant letters and 87 fragments of others. The first edition of Teresa's letters was published in 1658 with the comment of Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Roman Catholic bishop of Osma and an opponent to the Company of Jesus. • The Complete Works of St Teresa of Jesus, in five volumes, translated and edited by E. Allison Peers, including 2 volumes of correspondence. London: Sheed and Ward, 1982. ==Mysticism==

{{Quote box {{poem quote Let nothing make you afraid. All things are passing. God alone never changes. Patience gains all things. If you have God you will want for nothing. God alone suffices. The ultimate preoccupation of Teresa's mystical thought, as consistently reflected in her writings, is the ascent of the soul to God. Aumann notes that "the grades of prayer described in The Life do not correspond to the division of prayer commonly given in the manuals of the spiritual", including due to the fact that "St. Teresa did not write a systematic theology of prayer". According to Zimmerman, "In all her writings on this subject she deals with her personal experiences [...] there is no vestige in her writings of any influence of the Areopagite, the Patristic, or the Scholastic Mystical schools, as represented among others, by the German Dominican Mystics. She is intensely personal, her system going exactly as far as her experiences, but not a step further." Teresa describes in the Interior Castle that the treasure of heaven lies buried within our hearts, and that there is an interior part of the heart which is the centre of the soul. Four stages as described in the autobiography In her autobiography she describes four stages, in which she uses the image of watering one's garden as a metaphor for mystical prayer: • The first, Devotion of the Heart, consists of mental prayer and meditation. It means the withdrawal of the soul from without, penitence and especially the devout meditation on the passion of Christ (Autobiography 11.20). • The second, Devotion of Peace, is where human will is surrendered to God. This occurs by virtue of an uplifted awareness granted by God, while other faculties, such as memory, reason, and imagination, are not yet safe from worldly distraction. Although a partial distraction can happen, due to outer activity such as repetition of prayers or writing down spiritual things, the prevailing state is one of quietude (Autobiography 14.1). • The third, Devotion of Union, concerns the absorption-in-God. It is not only a heightened, but essentially, an ecstatic state. At this level, reason is also surrendered to God, and only the memory and imagination are left to ramble. This state is characterized by a blissful peace, a sweet slumber of at least the higher soul faculties, that is a consciousness of being enraptured by the love of God. • The fourth, Devotion of Ecstasy, is where the consciousness of being in the body disappears. Sensory faculties cease to operate. Memory and imagination also become absorbed in God, as though intoxicated. Body and spirit dwell in the throes of exquisite pain, alternating between a fearful fiery glow, in complete unconscious helplessness, and periods of apparent strangulation. Sometimes such ecstatic transports literally cause the body to be lifted into space. This state may last as long as half an hour and tends to be followed by relaxation of a few hours of swoon-like weakness, attended by the absence of all faculties while in union with God. The subject awakens from this trance state in tears. It may be regarded as the culmination of mystical experience. Indeed, Teresa was said to have been observed levitating during Mass on more than one occasion. The seven mansions of the Interior castle The Interior Castle is divided into seven mansions (also called dwelling places), each level describing a step to get closer to God. In her work, Teresa already assumed entrance into the first mansions by prayer and meditation. The purgative stage, involving active prayer and asceticism: • The first mansion begin with a soul's state of grace, but the souls are surrounded by sin and only starting to seek God's grace through humility in order to achieve perfection. • The second mansions are also called the Mansion of the Practice of Prayer because the soul seeks to advance through the castle by daily thoughts of God, humble recognition of God's work in the soul and ultimately daily prayer. • The third mansions are the Mansions of Exemplary Life characterized through divine grace and a love for God that is so great that the soul has an aversion to both mortal and venial sin and a desire to do works of charitable service to man for the ultimate glory of God. The prayer of acquired recollection belongs to the third mansion. The illuminative stage, the beginning of mystical or contemplative or supernatural prayer: According to Teresa of Ávila, mental prayer is meditational prayer, in which the person is like a gardener, who, with much labour, draws the water up from the depths of the well to water the plants and flowers. According to Teresa of Avila, mental prayer can proceed by using vocal prayers in order to improve dialogue with God. According to Lehodey, mental prayer can be divided into meditation, more active in reflections, and contemplation, more quiet and gazeful. Natural or acquired contemplation – prayer of simplicity For Teresa of Avila, in natural or acquired contemplation, also called the prayer of simplicity there is one dominant thought or sentiment which recurs constantly and easily (although with little or no development) amid many other thoughts, beneficial or otherwise. The prayer of simplicity often has a tendency to simplify itself even in respect to its object, leading one to think chiefly of God and of his presence, but in a confused manner. In the words of Saint Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, acquired contemplation "consists in seeing at a simple glance the truths which could previously be discovered only through prolonged discourse": reasoning is largely replaced by intuition and affections and resolutions, though not absent, are only slightly varied and expressed in a few words. Similarly, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, in his 30-day retreat or Spiritual Exercises beginning in the "second week" with its focus on the life of Jesus, describes less reflection and more simple contemplation on the events of Jesus' life. These contemplations consist mainly in a simple gaze and include an "application of the senses" to the events, to further one's empathy for Jesus' values, "to love him more and to follow him more closely". Natural or acquired contemplation has been compared to the attitude of a mother watching over the cradle of her child: she thinks lovingly of the child without reflection and amid interruptions. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: Infused or higher contemplation – mystical union According to Hardon, infused contemplation is "A supernatural gift by which a person's mind and will become totally centered on God. Under this influence the intellect receives special insights into things of the spirit, and the affections are extraordinarily animated with divine love. Infused contemplation assumes the free co-operation of the human will." According to Poulain, it is a form of mystical union with God, a union characterized by the fact that it is God, and God only, who manifests Himself. According to Poulain, mystical grace may also manifest as visions of the humanity of Christ or an angel or revelations of a future event, and include miraculous bodily phenomena sometimes observed in ecstatics. In Teresa's mysticism, infused contemplation is described as a "divinely originated, general, non-conceptual, loving awareness of God". According to Dubay: According to Thomas Dubay, infused contemplation is the normal, ordinary development of discursive prayer (mental prayer, meditative prayer), which it gradually replaces. Jordan Aumann considered that this idea of the two paths was "an innovation in spiritual theology and a departure from the traditional Catholic teaching". And Jacques Maritain proposed that one should not say that every mystic necessarily enjoys habitual infused contemplation in the mystical state, since the gifts of the Holy Spirit are not limited to intellectual operations. The Prayer of Quiet For Teresa of Avila, the Prayer of Quiet is a state in which the soul experiences an extraordinary peace and rest, accompanied by delight or pleasure in contemplating God as present. According to Poulain, "Mystical union will be called spiritual quiet when the Divine action is still too weak to prevent distractions: in a word, when the imagination still retains a certain liberty". According to Poulain, in incomplete mystical union, or the prayer of quiet or supernatural recollection, the action of God is not strong enough to prevent distractions, and the imagination still retains a certain liberty. Full or semi-ecstatic union According to Poulain, "Mystical union will be called [...] full union when its strength is so great that the soul is fully occupied with the Divine object, whilst, on the other hand, the senses continue to act (under these conditions, by making a greater or less effort, one can cease from prayer". Ecstatic union According to Poulain, "Mystical union will be called [...] ecstasy when communications with the external world are severed or nearly so (in this event one can no longer make voluntary movement nor energy from the state at will)." Transforming union The transforming union differs from the other three specifically and not merely in intensity. According to Poulain, "It consists in the habitual consciousness of a mysterious grace which all shall possess in heaven: the anticipation of the Divine nature. The soul is conscious of the Divine assistance in its superior supernatural operations, those of the intellect and the will. Spiritual marriage differs from spiritual espousals inasmuch as the first of these states is permanent and the second only transitory." ==Portrayals==

Portrayals of Teresa include the following: as Thérèse in ''La Vierge d'Avila'' by Catulle Mendès (1906) Literature • Simone de Beauvoir singles out Teresa as a woman who truly lived life for herself (and perhaps the only woman to do so) in her book The Second Sex. • She is mentioned prominently in Kathryn Harrison's novel Poison. The main character, Francisca De Luarca, is fascinated by her life. • Don DeLillo in End Zone depicted Teresa as a saint who eats from a human skull to remind herself of final things. • R. A. Lafferty was strongly inspired by El Castillo Interior when he wrote his novel Fourth Mansions. Quotations from St. Teresa's work are frequently used as chapter headings. • Pierre Klossowski prominently features Saint Teresa of Ávila in his metaphysical novel The Baphomet. • George Eliot compared Dorothea Brooke to St. Teresa in Middlemarch (1871–1872) and wrote briefly about the life and works of St. Teresa in the "Prelude" to the novel. • Thomas Hardy took Saint Teresa as the inspiration for much of the characterisation of the heroine Tess (Teresa) Durbeyfield, in ''Tess of the d'Urbervilles'' (1891), most notably the scene in which she lies in a field and senses her soul ecstatically above her. • The contemporary poet Jorie Graham features Saint Teresa in the poem Breakdancing in her volume The End of Beauty. • Bárbara Mujica's novel Sister Teresa, while not strictly hagiographical, is based upon Teresa's life. and Rubens' c. 1614 painting of the same subject is in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. • Another Rubens portrait of Teresa, from 1615, is now in the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. == In Art ==

File:Luis Juárez, Santa Teresa de Jesús (1610-1630).jpg|alt=St. Teresa of Avila, in a Carmelite habit, and with a halo of golden rays, holds a crucifix aloft.|Luis Juárez, Santa Teresa de Jesús (1610-1630) File:Santa Teresa de Jesús, de Francisco de Zurbarán (Sacristía mayor de la catedral de Sevilla).jpg|alt=St. Teresa of Avila, wearing a Carmelite habit, holds a book open as a white dove appears to her from the clouds.|Francisco de Zurbarán, Santa Teresa de Jesús (c. 1650) File:Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (atribuida) - Santa Teresa de Jesús (Colección Cabildo de Gran Canaria, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria).jpg|alt=St. Teresa of Avila, wearing a Carmelite habit, writing with a quill and surrounded by books, is visited by angels.|Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Saint Teresa of Jesus, (c.1650) File:Fray Juan de la Miseria (active c.1576) (copy after) - Saint Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) - Painting.41 - British Museum.jpg|alt=St Teresa of Avila, in a Carmelite habit, and with a halo of golden rays, clasps her hands in prayer as a white dove appears in the clouds.|Fray Juan de la Miseria (copy after), Saint Teresa of Ávila (17th c.) File:Joseph-Marie Vien, St. Teresa of Avila (18th c.).jpg|alt=St. Teresa of Avila, wearing a Carmelite habit, holds her open hand on the pages of a book, next to her white quill pen.|Joseph-Marie Vien, St. Teresa of Avila (18th c.) File:Juan Correa, Holy Mother Teresa as a Pilgrim (late 17th - early 18th c.).jpg|alt=St. Teresa of Avila, wearing a Carmelite habit, carries a shepherd’s staff.|Juan Correa, Holy Mother Teresa as a Pilgrim (late 17th - early 18th c.) File:Painting of St. Teresa of Avila, Neapolitan or Lombard School (17th c.).jpg|alt=St. Teresa of Avila, in a Carmelite habit, holds a quill pen above a book as a white dove appears.|painting of St. Teresa of Avila, Neapolitan or Lombard School (17th c.) File:Santa Teresa de Jesús, de Benito Mercadé (Museo del Prado)FXD.jpg|alt=St. Teresa of Avila, wearing a Carmelite habit, and with a gold halo, addresses her spiritual director, surrounded by Carmelite sisters.|Benet Mercadé, Santa Teresa de Jesús (1868) File:Sargent - Saint Teresa of Avila. c. 1903, 1937.8.67.jpg|alt=St. Teresa of Avila, wearing a Carmelite habit, levitates, surrounded by golden rays of light.|John Singer Sargent, Saint Teresa of Avila (c. 1903) Drama and film • Hugh Ross Williamson wrote a play, Teresa of Avila, about her life, which premiered in London in 1961. • Performance artist Linda Montano has cited Teresa of Ávila as one of the most important influences on her work and since her return to Catholicism in the 2000s has done performances of her life. • Teresa de Jesús (1984), directed by Josefina Molina and starring Concha Velasco, is a Spanish made-for-TV mini-series. In it, Teresa is portrayed as the determined foundress of new Carmelite houses while protecting the infant Jesus statue on her many arduous journeys. The devotion to the Child Jesus spread quickly in Spain, possibly due to her mystical reputation, and then to other places, including France. • St. Teresa also features prominently in the 2009 Ron Howard film, Angels and Demons, where the Bernini sculpture, "The Ecstasy of St. Teresa", is an important clue in helping Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) find an anti-matter bomb that is hidden in and set to destroy the Vatican. • Marian Álvarez portrays Teresa in the 2015 television film of the same name directed by Jorge Dorado and made for the 500th anniversary of her birth. Music • Marc-Antoine Charpentier composed two motets for the feast of Saint Teresa: Flores, flores o Gallia for two voices, two flutes and continuo (H.374), c. 1680 and the other, for three voices and continuo (H.342), in 1686–87. • She is a principal character of the opera Four Saints in Three Acts by the composer Virgil Thomson with a libretto by Gertrude Stein. • Saint Teresa is the subject of the song "Theresa's Sound-World" by Sonic Youth off the 1992 album Dirty, lyrics by Thurston Moore. • "Saint Teresa" is a track on Joan Osborne's Relish album, nominated for a Grammy Award in 1996. "The Sweet Part of the City", and "Our Whole Lives" • John Zorn composed a 2021 album entitled Teresa de Avila for a guitar trio consisting of Bill Frisell, Julian Lage, and Gyan Riley. The album is the last of a trilogy inspired by Christian mystical figures. • "Saint Teresa", as released by indie band Doves, on their 2025 album Constellations for the Lonely. • “St. Teresa”, as released by Tori Amos, on her 2026 album ‘’In the Time of Dragons’’. ==See also==